new eBook for SEO

I am happy to bring you the next eBook I have come across for web design.  This book is 90 pages full of information and pictures to illustrate the way to place SEO on a website.

This book will take anyone and make them an expert in SEO.  If you want to offer SEO to clients.  This is a book that I would suggest you have on hand to reference to.  This will give you a great start on how Search Engine Optimization works with different websites.  You can buy this web design ebook here. The price last time I looked was 24.99

Link to it Read about it here

If you like this Ebook, please rate it! @ eLibrary – Open Ebooks Directory

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Now since the iphone 4 is out, Here are some resource for most of us who are about to purchase the iphone.  I will post later on the iphone, but for now here are a few helpful links I came across.

Apple iPhone 4 Accessories

iPhone 4 screen protector

iPhone 4 Accessories

Lately there have been issues with people who have upgraded it on the mac side.  I noticed that a few people had mentioned that there firefox 3.6 viewing websites properly and some of them had the history or bookmarks not working.

After doing some searching online, I saw that most of the issues can be cleared up just by fixing the corrupt places.sqlite file.  On the mac, you have a few different library files.  different websites say different folders.  I found the folder though.

The idea is that we are going to throw away the places.sqlite file and restart firefox 3.6 this will force firefox to regenerate a good file.

The steps

1. locate the places.sqlite file, this is in your Users/username/library/… then go to Application support/Firefox/Profiles/yourdefaultname/ in here will be this file.

2. trash the places.sqlite file, well makesure firefox is not running first.

3.  Launch firefox, this should fix your issues with the history and bookmarks.  I noticed it cleaned up some of the other issues when this program ran also.

There is a great site out there for royalty free music.  If you have a project that needs some music, this site can help.  Were in that age now where web designers are expected to use video a lot of the time.  This whole site has music and sound effects that you can download to use on various projects.  I like this mainly because if you have a flash project that might require some action sounds, than you can simple look around on AudioBank to find the right sound for your project.  Oh and I really like that they allow you to listen to full length previews of the music.  The music is royalty free, so you can use it for as many projects as you need to.  If you get one long enough, than you might be able to cut it up to fit multiple projects.

If your reading this and you make your own music, they do have an area where you can signup.  This seems like a pretty cool way for some entry level musicians to get in and develop music for so many other artist to access.  The more people that contribute to this community, the better this resource will be for so many different artist.

Visit the Website here: royalty free music
Other resources: jeux, mac games

The forum would be a great place to see what people are saying about the latest versions of these products before you make the purchase.  Once I got in and did some looking around, it functioned much like the other software sites we are all used to.   Down the left hand side I was able to sort through all the software by company (i.e. Apple, Microsoft).  They also have the other sorting features.  One thing that really caught my eye is that they don’t just have Mac and PC.  They have Linux categorized software too.  It was nice to see that this company thought ahead for the Linux users.

For the web designers out there, look further down on the left and you will see a category for web design software.  That was one thing I especially liked.  Oh and not too mention that you cant get Dreamweaver CS4 for like 250 bucks.  You can even get the whole creative suite for under 500 bucks.  I would encourage most the web designers out there to at least create an account and visit the software forums.  I’m sure while your spending time on this site, you will come across some deals that might tempt you.  It looks like when you create an account you get access to a “my pages” area.  It looks like you can even manage your content right there.  This is a great comparison shopping website, and they have offered a lot of options for their users.  They encourage you to use the shopping guides, and post your feedback for how to make their website better.

Visit the website: http://software.become.com

I came across a website called Web Hosting fan.  It looks like they are a blog all about web hosting and web hosting related news.  This is a great place to start when looking around for some different events that affect some of the web designers out there.

My take away from this is that it’s a blog all about web hosting.  The best feature I liked was the reviews they had for various web host.  Ferret Hosting isn’t up there, but I will let that go for now.  The website seems very new, but so far looks like it is full of useful information.  Just the reviews alone will help anyone looking for web hosting.  The news is posted daily and looks like it covers things like viruses and malware.  There is a very nice section over SEO and relating it to your web hosting website.  There is even a post about how to safe guard your business from web hosting frauds.   It was nice to see a website that post more information about this.  They even covered e-commerce hosting in one article.  This is a giant issue when it comes to bandwidth and web hosting size.  Most people never acknowledge this.  There are enough post here to really get many designers up to speed on what is happening in the world of web hosting.  If your new to web hosing, start with some of the newer articles and don’t forget to hit up the archives.  Oh and don’t forget to look over some of the reviews there.  They have reviews over a few of the web hosting leaders right now in the market.

Now if you have some time on your hands and want to get a little more savvy about events going on in the web hosting industry, this is a great website that deserves a look.

The website links:

web hosting web hosting reviews

Worst of all there was no obvious way to uninstall this.  It turns out that the app itself is kind of misleading.  Not from Microsoft right…

The simple way to remove this is to go under tools in Firefox, down to Add-ons.

Look through the list of extensions.

Its listed as something like Search Bar 1.0.4 When you click on it for more info, you will see the name Bing. That is your monster.  Uninstall it, and then restart Firefox.  You will have escaped this experience with just a few Bing search engine bumps and scratchs.

I came across a service here awhile back.  My fear is that this is where web design is headed.   For the average home user, this is great.  For the web designer out there wanting to make a buck, not so much…

The service I found is called Lifeyo and it looks like a new web 2.0 app available for free.  This is really made for the none skilled computer user.  You can literally choose a theme template that is close to the look your after.  Then from there, you just drag and drop different features.  What you are seeing as you edit the site live is what users will see when they visit your website.

The interface is very clean and easy to use.  They make it laid out in a way that no one will get lost when it comes to adding options to your design.  They even made it easy to add a Google map to your website.  This would be great for the local mom and pop shop that still hasn’t updated to the world of the web.

There was this small issue I had with it.  They take care of the hosting and domain name.  First they give you a sub domain.  Something like yourname.lifeyo.com  which for the average user who doesn’t want to mess with it is great.  You then have the option to buy a domain from them, and have it displayed for your custom website.

All in all this is a feature that I can see so many small start up company’s jumping on.  For now, I dont think it wil effect the larger company’s who want to pay for a full blown custom website design.  Either way this web 2.0 app is worth a look.

http://www.lifeyo.com/

A nice case study that started me off on this subject was here.  I noticed parts of the article where small businesses were benefiting from cloud computing already.  I think this is in a large part due to hosted software.  When a company busy a workstation for an employee, they often rack up more debt buying all the software that employee would need to produce work for the company. Cloud Computing covers anything hosted online by some server in the sky.  Email has been this way for years, and now we have services like Google Docs.  There is even online file storage.  In a way you are already trusting your files to the cloud.  We are all prone to computer crashes and this has many of us looking to the cloud options out there for data backup.

The downside to cloud computing is security. I love that word security and everyone clings to it online.  I spent 5 years running an online store and security always came up when you were thinking of entering a credit card.  In reality, it is even more unsecure handing your credit card over to someone at a drive-thru window.  Company’s have documents they don’t want others to read, and that’s probably why they have stayed away from cloud computing.  Some new cloud computing OS’s now let you host the operating system on your own server.  Now the security is in your hands.  As this becomes even more popular, cloud computing will start gaining speed.  Soon people will prefer to have a virtual web top with their files safely backed up on multiple servers vs trusting that 4 year old desktop in the office.

Where do I think this is headed?  I have years of experience working with small business and I know what it means to have no budget.  These small company’s are the ones who can benefit the most from Cloud Computing.  Here is an example for where I’m coming from.  The company has a salesman and he is on the road visiting multiple clients.  The company usually has to fork out money for a laptop, and at the end of his trip he needs to sync up his contacts and new files to the older desktop he has running in his office.  Right away cloud computing can fix so many things.  With a cloud OS, he can just open up his web browser from any computer and have access to his virtual desktop with all the files he needs.  If either computer crashes, no problems he simply goes to another computer that has a working web browser and logs in to view all his files “unharmed”.  I know first hand that a computer crash to a small company with no IT personnel can cost the company in so many ways.

My example number two.  A small company wants to higher a new employee.  The employee will need a workstation and some basic word processing software.  This usually means having to buy MS Office.  Here is my cloud computing option.  Buy the cheapest laptop you can find.  All the laptop needs to do is access a web browser.  The employee opens the web browser to the “web top” and there on the web top/desktop are all the productivity programs they would need to produce for the company.  Even better yet, since they can login from any computer that has a web browser they will be able to access the web top from home.  You might even get better productivity out of sick days utilizing this way of Cloud Computing.

There are a large number of Cloud Computing OS’s right now.  Most are in a sort of Beta or Alpha stage.  Icloud really is the more visually appealing of the Cloud OS’s.  The downfall is that this really only works good if you are running Windows and IE 7 or 8.  Most of us would prefer a solution that is more versatile.  This is what drove me to eyeOS.  Now its not as visual, but the framework is there and it functions very well.

icloud desktop

Icloud OS Beta, on mac Alpha

gOS desktop

g OS version 3.1

eye OS desktop

eyeOS in Beta

After taking a Digital Publishing class, I really wanted to find out what is next in terms of working online.  Everything digital we have is published online by a computer somewhere.  With this why can’t we use a virtural OS “Cloud Computing” to do what we are already doing online today?  The answer is that we can.  People are already using cloud computing and have been for years.  For those of us who have a Gmail account, thats nothing more than cloud computing used to organize text files sent back and forth between our contacts.

Johnathan Zittrain points out that the web would be a better place as long as there is openness.  This is exactly how some of these online operating systems came about.  For example, eyeOS’s about page refers to all these different online mediums that have helped make the program what it is today.  Behind the eyeos project there is many more people involved than those working at the eyeos company. It is almost impossible to create a list with everybody who has contributed to the eyeos project since every blog post, comment or suggestion has improved eyeos in different ways. Eyeos would not be anything without all of them.  They offer up their OS for free, and anyone can contribute in their own way.

In the spirit of openness and for the fact that I have been wanting to try out a virtual OS, I went ahead and downloaded eyeOS.  I decided I would try this out on my own server and let everyone reading this know my personal take on it.

Here is a nice YouTube video of the operating system at work.  Got to love this guys British Accent.  It really is a nice video on the OS and the features.

In the near future I will do a video of my own on it.  I want to make a demo login on my site, so everyone can get a chance to test drive this OS eventually.  Check back soon for my update.

Share some Links:

Should you setup a webtop

Portable cloud computing

icloud puts an OS in the clouds

Ghost OS operating system

free open source software vs cloud computing

cloud computing for your backups

cloud computer text editor better than Word?

Plug into the Cloud

Should you move your small business to the cloud

Can you trust your business in Google’s cloud

The hidden cost of Google Apps

Company’s look to online computing

Haagen-Dazs is in the clouds

Google Doc’s grows

Success in Europe

Should scientist use Microsofts Cloud Computing

the hidden risk of cloud computing

Can you trust your cloud provider

What are we trusting to the cloud

Time to get clear on cloud computing

cloud antivirus for your computer

how to secure cloud computing

possible computer disasters associated to the cloud

what makes cloud computing different

icloud on mac still in early Alpha stages

Other up and comping cloud OS companies

There is a reason I pay for quality web hosting.  In my years of web design I have herd war stories about companies jumping on with the cheapest web host that offers the most amount of space.  There are always issues about  what you are allowed to put on the supposedly unlimited web space you receive.  If I’m paying for web space, I better be allowed to put what I want up there.  That would be like renting an apartment, and the land lord saying you are only allowed to put in furniture that is the color green.  I dont know about you, but if my money is going somewhere I’m gonna pay a little extra to get what I want.

I’ve now been web hosting for 3 years (www.ferrethosting.com), and the company I partner with in this last year just bought an under ground shelter in Stockholm Sweden.  This facility is powered by 2 submarine engines and they are even giving tours to those of us who want to visit Sweden.

There are soo many shared server hosting services out there, that offer ridiculous amounts of space and it seems to be to good to be true.  How much of that money is being put back into the facilities you are being hosted on?  Thats the real question, and why in the privacy policy do they say you are only allow to place web files up there?  And who are they to decide if a pdf or a .wmv isnt something your going to incorporate into the website?

My point is that I’m tired of working with clients who are on these web host and complaining about the lack of service.  This is exactly the reason I setup ferret hosting.  Its your web space and you are paying for the Gb’s of storage space, backup your computer files if you want.  The web should be open, and companies like this are locking down what you can and can’t do on the web.  Thats my small 2 cent rant…